


Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!

by RedBlazer



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Artist Steve Rogers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes-centric, Cats, Dogs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Neighbors, POV Bucky Barnes, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Veterans, Writers, hipster Steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is a carpenter trying to move on from the war, he adopts a dog. Steve is a writer/illustrator/cat owner, he moves in next door.</p><p>Bucky's dog is obsessed with Steve's jerk of a cat. Steve's cat won't leave Bucky's weirdo dog alone.</p><p>Steve and Bucky cannot stand each other.</p><p>The cat and the dog are both hypoallergenic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god. Why did my brain do this?

A house with a yard. The holy grail of New York City real estate. And not only a yard, but a back porch. Okay, more like a three square foot area made out of wood with two steps leading down. But since Bucky's never had a yard before, he's going to call it like he sees it.

It's a fucking porch. That leads to his fucking yard. Where his fucking dog can run around in circles to her heart's content while Bucky sits on the porch and reads his fucking book. 

The only problem is the fucking cat next door.

Trixie's a good girl. A little rough around the edges and she's never met a mailman that she liked. But she's Bucky's dog so he's pretty fond of her. Even though she's a bed hog and hasn't spent a day in the crate Bucky bought her at the insistence of the woman who ran Puppy Boot Camp.

She's Bucky's dog.

And he loves her. But if she doesn't stop yodeling, he might have to change his mind. Because it's two in the morning and she's been at it for fifteen minutes. Pacing the floor over and over, her nails clacking against the hardwood floor that Bucky needs to restore and letting out a mournful 'BA-ROO' every few seconds.

"Trixie," Bucky groans, his head under one of his pillows. "I love you, but you gotta can it."

She puts her head in the palm of Bucky's outstretched hand over the side of the bed. And then she proceeds to yowl in his ear.

"Oh my god!" Bucky exclaims, throwing back the covers and sitting up in his bed. He reaches over with his right hand to turn on the bedside lamp. Trixie's a basenji, which Bucky was told were a barkless breed. Not that that was the only reason he got her, but it was a plus. He didn't really know that barkless meant she would howl and yodel rather than barking like most other dogs. "Trixie, you gotta work with me here."

But she only paces back and forth anxiously, her tail unmoving, ears cocked to whatever she's picking up. Her compact body is deceivingly heavy when he tries to reel her in and pull her up onto the bed. But she stiffens and refuses to be moved.

Her eyes are alert and scanning the room, coming to rest on the open window where Bucky has the blinds pulled down.

Trixie trots across the room and stands up on her hind legs before the window. And the first time Bucky had seen that was the first time he'd smiled in weeks. She does it all the time now, balancing on her tiny hind legs like a meerkat.

"What is it now?" Bucky grumbles, walking to the window and jerking open the blinds.

And then he yells. He's a grown man and he yells. Because even though it's a cat, he had not expected a freaking hairless cat's glowing gold eyes to stare back at him.

Bucky stumbles back from the window. Trixie, now seeing the source of the noise, drops her paws on to the windowsill and presses her nose to the screen, sniffing and chuffing under her breath.

And seriously? Creepy hairless cat? The best part of having a pet is actually petting it. He kind of shivers at the thought of petting the cat. Would it just feel like petting skin? Huh.

Trixie and the cat both quirk their heads to the side, picking up on the vague impression of a voice that Bucky can't make out. But the cat gives a loud meow and is gone into the night, across the porch roof and out of sight.

Trixie wanders around for a few more minutes before she hops up on Bucky's bed and settles down.

"Are we good now?" He asks her. And she can't speak but she throws him side-eye and puts her head down on her paws.

Bucky turns off the light and rolls over. And it takes a while. But sleep does happen eventually.

\----------

The fucking cat shows up every single night for a week. Bucky buys earplugs and closes the window but Trixie won't stop crying.

At the end of that long week, Bucky loses his mind.

Without even turning on the light he stomps over to the window, throwing it and the screen open and reaching out blindly. His hands close around the cat's middle and it doesn't struggle. Bucky pulls it into the bedroom while Trixie looses her mind with excitement, prancing around Bucky and winding her body between his knees.

Bucky holds the cat with one arm, and it is weird feeling skin instead of fur. But the cat's also warm and not at all clammy like he imagines a snake might be. He turns on the bedside lamp, sitting on the bed with the cat. 

It actually is kind of cute in a weird way. It's gold eyes are huge in its small face and its ears are far too large for its head. The cat has wrinkles across its forehead like Bucky's old man. It's skin is a cool gray color that he would normally associate with cool stone and river rocks.

"Who are you?" Bucky asks. The cat is wearing a green collar with a hammered silver tag on it. He holds the tag up to the light. "Cinnamon." He reads. The cat starts purring. "Who do you belong to?" The address on the back of the tag is for the place next door. The upstairs apartment to be exact.

Bucky huffs, pointing at Trixie. "Be good." And then gets up, trudging through the house and down the stairs without turning the lights on as he goes. He doesn't even bother locking the door after him as he stumbles off his stoop and carries the cat next door. There's a set of steps wrapping around the side of the house leading up to the apartment in question. Bucky takes them two at a time until he reaches the door, pounding on it with a closed fist.

It takes about a minute. But eventually he hears movement and then locks clicking as they're undone. The guy who opens the door and pokes his head out is about a head shorter than Bucky with blonde hair and thick-rimmed square glasses. His eyebrows come together, wrinkles across his forehead form like those of the cat.

"Your cat got out." Bucky says in lieu of greeting, holding out the cat at arms length and depositing it in the guy's surprised arms. 

The guy shakes his head, arms reflexively wrapping around the cat and holding it to his thin chest. "She's an indoor/outdoor cat." He answers in a voice much lower than Bucky expected.

Bucky shakes his head. "Yeah, well she keeps jumping onto my porch roof and sitting at my window. My dog won't stop yowling-"

"That's your dog!?" The guy intones, now sounding pissed. "It howls all day when you aren't home!"

Bucky blushes. Trixie isn't the one with the problem here. It's this fucking cat who won't leave them alone.

"She's a dog. She does that." Bucky tells the guy.

"She's a cat! She climbs shit. It's what she does!" The guy exclaims. His blue eyes narrow at Bucky from behind the lenses of his glasses. And he probably doesn't even need those glasses. Also. What is any same person doing awake and coherent at three in the morning?

"There are cars! And kids on bikes flying through this neighborhood. Aren't you worried she's gonna get hit?" Bucky asks. The feeling of annoyance now turning to anger. And about what? A cat.

"She's fucking smart." The guy shouts at him and then slams the door.

Bucky stands there for a full minute before he walks back to his place.

\----------

Trixie is fucking heartbroken. 

And instead of BA-ROOing through the night, she whimpers and curls up on the floor next to the window.

Fucking asshole cat.

\----------

Bucky takes Trixie on a run every morning for a few miles and then he goes to the shop to get some work done on the commissioned pieces he needs to finish. And he feels pretty fucking awful. But a woodworking shop is no place for a dog. Especially one as zippy as Trixie. Maybe once she's older and doesn't run circles around the house constantly.

He tries not to leave her in the house alone all day. Usually it's only a few hours and he'll take the train home so she can do her business. And then Bucky will play with her. Then dinner and some TV. Another walk before bedtime and then Trixie mopes around the house before she finally settles down.

Bucky and Trixie are on one of those morning runs, returning home in the early morning hours. Bucky stopped at the bodega for coffee on the walk back. He and Trixie leisurely make their way back to the brownstone. Trixie happily smelling every sign and lamppost, her tail wagging.

Nearly at his house, Bucky pauses to find his keys in his pocket while Trixie takes a wizz. The sound of a door opening nearby makes Bucky turn, the guy next door with the cat is standing on the landing to his place in a pair of sweatpants, his glasses and nothing else. With him is a guy in a rumpled suit leaning down to plant one pretty serious kiss on Bucky's neighbor.

And Bucky's not nosy. But he does hang around a bit as guy next door and his walk of shame buddy make out on the landing for another few seconds. Then Bucky's neighbor pats the guy on the ass and sends him on his way.

The guy smirks at Bucky, pushing his tie into the breast pocket of his suit as he gets into the outrageously expensive Porsche sitting at the curb.

The neighbor rolls his eyes at Bucky, slamming his front door closed again.

Asshole.

Bucky grumbles to himself and Trixie as he unlocks the door. A flash of movement catches his eye coming from the house next door. He watches as Cinnamon pokes her head out of the second story window of the apartment. She lifts her head to the morning sun, her bat-like ears flicking absently. Trixie immediately takes notice. Her caramel colored head quirks to the side, eyes tracking Cinnamon as she leaps gracefully out the window to the shed below and then out of sight behind the fence.

The cat appears seconds later, sniffing at the air and then making tracks towards Bucky's back yard. Trixie's tail wags so hard that her whole backside is swinging back and forth excitedly.

Bucky sighs to himself, letting them into the house. Trixie immediately makes a break for the back door, pawing anxiously at it and sniffing at the baseboards. Bucky follows at a much more subdued pace.

"Just promise you aren't going to kill that cat." Bucky says, kneeling down and holding the dog's face in his hands. She's never been aggressive before. A little whacky at times. But squirrels have always been safe in their yard. Trixie whimpers and butts at his face with her cold nose. "Okay. Gross." Bucky says, unlocking the door and letting her out.

The cat's already sitting on the wooden railing of Bucky's pathetic back porch. Her thin, hairless tail curling lazily back and forth behind her.

Inexplicably instead of yowling, Trixie marches up to the railing and stands up on her hind legs, her forepaws dangling lazily. She holds her face up to the cat, audibly sniffing the air. Cinnamon bends down regally. And Bucky's never described anything as regal. But this cat is regal as fuck. Graceful and calm while Trixie acts like a weirdo.

The cat leans down and presses her considerably tiny nose against Trixie's. And before he can stop himself, Bucky goes. "Aww."

He looks up to the window to see the neighbor standing there looking down. He's running a hand through his wildly out of control bedhead. Bucky nods at him and goes back inside to get ready. He's pleasantly surprised that the dog and cat aren't trying to kill each other.

When Bucky calls Trixie in an hour or so later, he finds her lazily rolling in the grass outside. Cinnamon resting next to her, basking in the warm summer sun.

They reluctantly part ways, Trixie coming inside while the cat leaps up towards the open window.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint and Natasha come over under the guise of watching a baseball game, but really they want to check the fridge to make sure that there’s food in it. It’s a sticky June evening. And since Bucky is cheap, all of the windows are thrown in rather than turning on the central air conditioning that seemed like a selling point of the house when he bought it.

Trixie seems pretty happy that there are people around, plus Clint keeps feeding her little nips of turkey from the burgers they grilled earlier. So he’s pretty much earned her loyalty for the rest of his life. She’ll probably try to leave with them at the end of the night.

Mostly they’re all sprawled out in the living room, Clint and Natasha on the couch, legs twined together while Bucky sits in one of the first chairs he ever made by the window. Around the 6th inning, Trixie prances over to stick her cold nose to the back of Bucky’s knee and then look up at him with literal puppy dog eyes. Bucky hauls her up into his lap even though she’s a bit big to qualify as a lap dog.

When he first got Trixie, he held her constantly in his arms like a baby, carried her from room to room all day long. That was before he could bring himself to open the windows. Back when he used to wake up in a cold sweat, grasping at his left shoulder and shaking. And somehow half a dozen psychiatrists couldn’t comfort Bucky but this tiny, panting, wriggling puppy calmed him down.

They’re highly intelligent dogs, but they are fiercely loyal to only one person. So, sorry Clint, but Trixie’s Bucky’s dog and there’s no getting around it.

Clint stretches his arms over his head, pressing his skull against the back of the couch and looking out the front window.

“GAH!” He exclaims, recoiling and then spinning around.

Bucky looks over, amused. Instantly, Trixie jumps up in his lap and bounds over to Natasha and Clint. Normally he would frown on her leaping up on to the couch, but she’s so fucking cute that he can’t yell at her. And of course, there’s Cinnamon, pressing her nose to the screen and meowing loudly in greeting.

“Aww!” Natasha exclaims, holding her hand up to the screen for the cat to smell. “Look at you.”

And Natasha isn’t the kind of woman who ogles baby animals and sighs, but something about a hairless, wrinkly cat must tug at her heartstrings.

“Bucky, why the fuck is there a gargoyle outside your window?” Clint asks, one hand still covering his heart. Natasha and Trixie both have their faces up to the screen, Trixie standing on her hind legs and Natasha leaning over Clint.

“You asshole, It’s a sphinx cat.” Natasha scolds him. “Look at how friendly she is.” Cinnamon’s rubbing the side of her face against the screen and purring so loudly that Bucky can hear it across the room.

Bucky sighs, “She’s the new neighbor’s.”

Something in the cadence of Bucky’s voice must signal Natasha and Clint to potential tension. “Do we not like him?” Clint asks.

Bucky rolls his eyes and goes to get himself another beer, taking a peek out the kitchen window to make sure that yes, Cinnamon’s window is wide open as usual. The neighbor’s sitting at a desk with a bright lamp lighting up whatever he’s working on. There are lines of pages strung up across the room, but Bucky can’t make up what they are of.

“I don’t know, the guy’s kind of an asshole.” Bucky says, walking back into the room. “What the fuck are you doing?” He asks.

Natasha looks up, guilty. She’s opened the screen and has Cinnamon in her arms. Clint’s petting her head with caution while Trixie wags her tail with delight.

“Uh.” Natasha begins, looking from the cat to the window and then to Bucky.

“Put her back out there!” Bucky exclaims and then lowers his voice because he’s not quite sure how far it might carry to the neighbor’s open window. “Oh my god. You’re both crazy people.”

Natasha screws up her face, keeping a grip on the cat. “It’s fine! Look at how relaxed she is. It’s not like I’m stealing her!”

Clint’s absorbed in petting her, but he does look up at Bucky to shrug. Like he knows that his girlfriend is a little off the wall for bringing the neighbor’s cat inside.

“Cinnamon’s not my cat, Natasha.” Bucky whisper yells at her.

“Her name is Cinnamon?” Natasha and Clint both intone at the same time.

“Shut the fuck up.” Bucky says, holding up his hands. “Do you want her owner to call the fucking cops on me for trying to abduct his cat?”

Natasha raises an eyebrow, letting the cat go. She very happily curls up in a ball next to Natasha. Seeing this and believing that Cinnamon is leading by example, Trixie does the same, resting her head on the cat’s back. They both look up at Bucky with huge, pleading eyes.

“Fuck. Fine, she can stay for two innings and then she has to go home.” Bucky says, taking a swig of his beer.

She stays through the end of the game and through half of the episode of Firefly they put on afterwards. Really, the only reason Cinnamon actually leaves is because Bucky hears the neighbor out on the street calling for her.

“Fuck!” Bucky exclaims, jumping up from the chair and grabbing the cat before it can go out the window where the neighbor will totally see it. And that would lead to questions like: What the fuck are you doing with my cat?

Clint’s all giggly from too many beers, but Natasha is totally sober at this point. Bucky locks eyes with her and points to the front door.

It’s her fault that the cat’s in the house anyway, so she goes outside to distract him while Bucky carries Cinnamon under one arm towards the back door. He puts her down on the back porch as quietly as possible, running back to the living room to join Natasha on the front stoop under the guise of stepping out for a smoke.

The neighbor and Natasha appear to be in the middle of a conversation about said cat. Natasha, bless her, has a fake confused look on her face. “No, I haven’t seen one. What does it look like?”

The neighbor’s eyes narrow on Bucky as he steps outside with his lighter, coming to sit on the concrete steps. “Hairless, eight pounds or so.” He holds his hands about a foot apart. “Answers to Cinna or Cinnamon.”

“Aww, Cinna. Like from The Hunger Games?” Natasha asks, holding out her hand for Bucky’s cigarette, mostly so that she can toss it away the second Bucky’s neighbor turns his back. Bucky elbows her in the ribs.

He nods. “Yeah, exactly like that. 

“I thought Cinna was a guy.” Bucky grumbles.

“Yeah, I’m not having any of that from a guy whose dog has a stripper name.” The neighbor shoots back, not angrily. Just sarcastic and kind of amused. And with perfect timing, Cinnamon meows and emerges from Bucky’s back yard. She strolls up to him, nuzzling at the guy’s skinny legs with the whole side of her body. “Oh there you are!” He bends down, scooping the cat up and holding her against his chest. She plants a paw there and sinks her claws in a bit in that way that cats do, pulling down the guy’s white t-shirt to reveal a prominent collarbone. “Nice meeting you.” The guy says to Natasha and then turns from Bucky without a word.

Asshole.

“Night, Steve!” Natasha calls.

Natasha snorts once the neighbor has totally disappeared from view. “He’s cute.”

“He’s an asshole.” Bucky tells her. “What kind of a person lets their cat out in the city?”

“Uh. Someone who trusts they have a smart cat?” Natasha answers, shrugging.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “He’s so nice to you, and you’re the one who abducted his cat. Unbelievable.”

“I’ve got skills.” Natasha shrugs. “What can I say?”

Bucky grumbles something unintelligible, getting up to go back inside where Trixie looks disappointed. And she doesn’t have a stripper name! Who even says that? Cinnamon isn’t even a name, it’s a spice. That’s what he should have said back to that guy. 

He tells this to Natasha and Clint as they get their stuff together an hour later.

“Someone insulted Trixie’s honor?” Clint exclaims, wobbly on his feet. “A duel! Pistols at dawn!”

Natasha drags him out of the house and into a cab waiting on the curb that some guy is getting out of, on his way to Steve’s by the look of it.

He sighs, locking up the house and closing the windows for the night. Trixie follows him as usual. Bucky lets her out to do her business for the night, sitting on the back porch and staring up at the sky. You can’t see stars in the city what with the light pollution and the actual pollution. And Bucky’s seen real stars in his time. Amazingly bright ones in the sky spanning across the whole sky over Iraq. Back then Natasha and Clint hadn’t been dating so much as just fucking. Bucky hadn’t been shot. Trixie hadn’t even been born yet.

Bucky sighs to himself, looking up at the window of what he assumes is Steve’s office judging by the desk and everything. He isn’t in there now and the window is closed. But Bucky can still hear the faint sounds of music playing coming from the apartment.

He and Trixie head upstairs for the night. Bucky crawls under the covers and Trixie totally ignores her own very comfortable dog bed to lie next to him and pant in his face.

\---------

When Trixie starts chuffing and pacing a few hours later, Bucky doesn’t even bother trying to calm her. In for a penny, he throws the window’s screen open and goes back to bed.

It’s so late that Steve will probably never notice, and anyway he has company so he’ll probably just think that Cinnamon is prowling the neighborhood.

Both of the girls settle down next to Bucky and fall asleep. Bucky does the same.

And when he wakes up Cinnamon’s gone, Trixie’s hungry, and Bucky needs coffee.

\----------

He doesn’t mean for it to become a habit, but it does. Every night Bucky goes ahead and just leaves the screen open. And luckily no pigeons or raccoons make their way into his home. Plus he gets to sleep through the night knowing that Trixie won’t be waking him up with her calls of interspecies friendship.


	3. Chapter 3

There's a brochure for a doggy daycare taped to Bucky's front door.

And he knows without having to be told that Steve's the one who put it there. If he's right and Trixie doesn't like spending the day in the house, then Bucky's gonna have to figure out another solution.

It's a disaster.

Bucky drops Trixie off at the doggie daycare in the morning, feeling like someone who is abandoning their child with a new really perky family. And the couple that runs the place couldn't be friendlier. There are articles and testimonials up on the walls proclaiming that they're people who care about dogs and there's no other place in Brooklyn that does as good of a job as they do.

Bucky fills out paperwork about Trixie's schedule and her temperament. He even brings along one of his old flannel work shirts in case she gets separation anxiety. And Trixie seems intrigued by the dozen or so dogs on the other side of the glass wall where they have space to play. She presses her nose to the glass and wags her tail at the end of the leash Bucky has her on.

The man behind the counter assures Bucky that everything will be fine. "She's gonna love it!"

Bucky hands her leash over to the man and stands at the counter when he leads Trixie away into the back area where they can get her used to the smells and sounds of the place before putting her in the room with the other dogs.

He stands there waiting for a lot longer than necessary, kind of hoping for another glimpse of her before he has to leave. But it doesn't come.

Bucky gets on the train and gets to his workspace. And while the smell of varnish and sawdust is comforting, he feels really sad for no reason.

He tries to set that aside and work on a couple different projects. A cradle for a rich couple on the Upper East Side. A dining room table for a wedding gift coming up. A leather arm chair for a bed and breakfast. But nothing really holds his attention.

An hour later his phone rings, the doggy daycare's name flashes up on the screen. Bucky's getting his keys and locking up before he even picks up the phone.

He picks up the phone and immediately hears Trixie's yodeling going on in the background. Not the excited kind that happens when Bucky comes home from work. She sounds miserable.

"Mr. Barnes, Trixie's not doing well. She's extremely distressed. Would you like us your emergency contact or--?"

"I'll be there in 15 minutes." Bucky bites into the phone and then hangs up.

He's pretty much a wreck by the time that he gets to the doggy daycare. Sweating much more than the weather permits and he's pretty sure he has Crazy Eyes going on. He throws open the door and marches in, the woman at the front desk must know who he is, and ushers him towards the office in the back.

It's silent, which should be a good sign. Instead it makes nerves coil in Bucky's belly.

"Some dogs just don't do well on their first day." She tells him, looking really disappointed.

Bucky nods curtly. They arrive in a small office where the man from before is sitting at a desk working on bills. He looks around for any sign of Trixie; finally he sees the tip of a caramel colored tail sneaking out from a coat closet on the other side of the room.

"She calmed down a bit once she laid down in there." The woman says. He goes down on his knees, easing his way into the doorframe, hoping he doesn't scare her. This is classic fireworks or thunderstorm behavior for Trixie. But he's never seen her behave like this because of a new place. “She’s not hurt, didn’t even make it into the play area with the other dogs.”

He tries to keep his voice as soothing as possible. And yes, he's comforting a dog in a closet. This isn't what he thought his life would be like. Whatever. Trixie's curled up into as small of a ball as she can, vibrating with nerves when Bucky reaches out and puts a comforting hand on her head. She keeps up a quiet, but high-pitched whimper as Bucky sits with her.

"Oh sweetie, it's okay." Bucky tells her. He looks over at the owners of the place. "I'm gonna take her off your hands if that's alright."

They tell him they'll refund his money but Bucky shakes his head, "Nah, you earned it having to deal with this drama queen." He tells them, standing up and lifting all 25 lbs. of dog into his arms. And thankfully she doesn't squirm. She just lays her head on his shoulder and huffs against his ear.

The owners hand Bucky back the shirt he brought with him and open the door for him. Outside on the street it's better and worse. Trixie seems calmer now that she's away from all of the other dogs, but the noise of the cars startles her every few seconds.

He keeps up a constant stream of words to her as they walk back to the house. And what a sight he must be, a broad-shouldered guy in paint splattered jeans carrying his dog home like a toddler who refuses to walk. He gets a few women who audibly sigh when they see him. Another guy gives him the elevator eye. But Bucky's more focused on getting them home than a hook up.

Though, he’s probably going to be the subject of a few texts that read something like, “Some dude off the cover of a romance novel just walked by carrying an emotionally distraught dog. Fuck my life.”

Eventually they make it back. Bucky doesn't even let them into the house; he just goes to the gate and takes them to the backyard. He puts Trixie down on the grass, hoping that she'll perk up a bit now that she's in familiar territory. Mostly she just stands completely still. And it freaks Bucky out. The only time that dog is still is when she's sleeping. And even then she paws at the air and chirps at invisible chipmunks.

Bucky hastily looks around for that dumb cat. Nowhere to be seen. And the window's closed that she normally comes from. Bucky sighs to himself. He brings food and water out to Trixie in the hopes that it might cheer her up to no avail. Trixie has no interest in her favorite ball, or playing tug of war with one of Bucky's old socks. And now Bucky pretty much feels like the worst human alive.

And so desperate times call for desperate measures. He knocks on Steve's door.

Luckily, Steve answers. Though it's pretty unlucky that he obviously just got out of the shower.

There's a towel around Steve's middle, held together by one of his hands. All over Steve's been untouched by summer. He's covered in pale, unblemished skin. It's so distracting that there's about a minute of silence between them. His ribs and collarbones make faint impressions against his skin. But he holds himself like a man much taller, shoulders back, chin up, that mouth of his held in a careful line.

It’s pretty fucking distracting. And if he met Steve in a bar or something, he would try to get him to come home. But he doesn’t like Steve, because he’s up at all hours listening to music and making out with his hookups out on the stoop when Bucky’s coming back from his runs. Oh, and his cat’s seen Bucky naked like 20 times at this point.

"Let your cat out." Bucky says before Steve can even get a word in edgewise.

"Excuse me?" Steve asks, flicking his wet hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head. His hair is short on the sides and longer at the front, a darker ashy blonde now that it's damp.

"Let your cat out." Bucky repeats himself. "Please." He tacks that part on when Steve just blinks at him.

Steve frowns at Bucky. "So now you want her outside?"

Bucky rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't get it, but your cat likes my dog. And my dog appears to have lost her damn mind today. So if Cinnamon could come out and play, that would be grand."

And then Bucky storms off, hoping that Trixie hasn't tried to like gnaw off her own leg or something.

She hasn't. Instead she's listless and laying in the grass.

Bucky lays down next to her, lighting up a cigarette. He's promised Nat that he'll only have one a day. And usually he saves it for right before bed out on the porch. Today though he feels jittery and out of sorts. His hands won't settle and he feels like nothing he does will help Trixie. And if he can't please his dog, how in the world is Bucky going to be a productive member of society?

"Hey you!" A familiar voice calls out from above. Bucky shields his eyes from the sun with his hand. Steve's leaning out the window to his office. He's dressed now, which is a plus. But his hair is damp and clinging to his forehead. "Have her back by midnight or she turns into a pumpkin." He says, disappearing for a second.

Steve comes back into view, Cinnamon held carefully in his hands. He deposits her carefully on the windowsill and watches fondly as she leaps from there, to the shed, to Bucky's fence and then down to the ground.

"Thank you Steven." Bucky calls, just to be an ass.

"Sure thing James." Steve replies, saluting and then popping back inside.

And how Steve knows Bucky's first name actually boggles his mind.

Either way it doesn't matter. Cinnamon slinks over to Trixie and bats a paw at her. Trixie opens one eye and then springs to life, hopping around and BA-ROOing with joy.

They play a weird game of tag in the back yard for hours. Trixie will run circles around the cat until she tires herself out and needs to take a break, which is when Cinnamon strikes. She creeps up on Trixie, keeping her body low to the ground before pouncing on the unsuspecting dog, which starts them over at the beginning again.

\----------

Bucky decides that it’s probably best not to inflict Trixie on any other of Brooklyn’s doggy daycare centers. Also, he doesn’t understand why they have to be called doggy daycare. And not something that doesn’t make Bucky feel like he’s leaving her there for naps and coloring.

He’s overanalyzing it.

\----------

He stays home for as long as he conceivably can before going back to the shop. Because if he doesn’t go back to the shop at some point, he’ll never finish the pieces and then that couple will have nowhere for their baby to sleep. And that’s kind of an important thing. Also, he won’t make any money and a mortgage in Brooklyn is no laughing matter.

Bucky’s able to carve out three days of lazy summer days around the house with Trixie before he absolutely has to go back to work. And when he does go back, he leaves the TV on, the water bowl full, the AC on, and he hides toys stuffed with treats all over the house so hopefully that should keep her occupied.

Trixie doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s heading out the door with his bag and his keys. She’s laying on her back in a sunbeam without a care in the world.

Bucky hopes that in his next life he comes back as a dog, because they have zero responsibilities.

\----------

Bucky works as fast as he possibly can once he gets to the shop. He puts on some classic rock, his apron, goggles and mask; and he sets to work.

If he can get into the zone, it’s a lot easier to really concentrate on the work and not on anything else that clouds his mind. It’s why he started doing this when he came back from combat. He was raised by immigrant parents who never met a problem around the house that they needed to call someone else to fix. In their tiny apartment building, his father asked the landlord for space in the basement to put in a woodworking station. So long as he did the repairs needed on the building, the landlord wouldn’t charge him anything for it. So Bucky spent his whole childhood hauling lumber, holding flashlights, measuring and cutting, getting splinters, and finally building with his dad.

He loved it so much that he wanted to become an architect, and he did. But then war happened, and he got shot. And it became too hard to think about a structure so large and not panic.

So one random winter day Bucky built himself a chair. Because he needed to prove to himself that he could still make things. ...and also because he really needed a chair.

Natasha saw it and offered to help him put together a website if that’s what he wanted to do. And at that point, the firm he was working for had lost Bucky’s largest contract. So he did it. He quit his job and started renting space for his workshop.

And now he makes furniture. Furniture made out of reclaimed barn wood and whatever repurposed pieces he can. Once he made a pretty awesome sofa out of an old set of seats from a horse drawn carriage. The leather he gets from a farm in upstate New York. One of those places where the cows are really happy and fed better food than Bucky usually does. He built them a sign for the grounds and they have him enough steak to last him a year.

Most of the time when he heads up there, chefs from pretentious restaurants in the city are picking up orders for meat and vegetables. But it’s really nice up there.

About a year ago, one of the owners gave Bucky a call and told him they were tearing down their old stables. They needed help with the weekend project. Bucky was allowed to take whatever he wanted from the barn as payment. So Bucky had rented a U-Haul and driven up to the farm, fully prepared to spend the next few days sore and tired.

Only it turned out to be incredibly backbreaking work that left everyone exhausted and starving at the end of the day. But the owners of the farm were pretty rad, and they fed everyone family style at a giant table in their dining room. Bucky stayed in a converted loft above the horse barn at night along with the other dopes who had been tricked in to helping with the project.

On the first night Bucky climbed down from the loft to have a smoke outside, not wanting to set the whole place on fire with a misplaced ember. So he crept along as quietly as possible past all of the sleeping horses and the odd goat hanging around.

Until he got to the last stall where a tiny, high-pitched yodel stopped him in his tracks.

Puppies, a whole litter of 6, their mother and father were all resting in the next of blankets and straw provided. Except for a chubby, wrinkly thing with giant ears sticking up on top of its head, caramel fur and a white belly. The puppy was pawing weakly at the door to the stall they were in, yowling.

And it was the weirdest noise Bucky had ever hears out of a dog. And it was never-ending. Even though the thing was only a puppy and not even the length of Bucky’s forearm, it’s vocal cords packed a punch. And it wouldn’t fucking stop.

Worried that the puppy would wake everyone in the barn up, Bucky threw open the stall door and scooped it up in his arms before he thought about it too much.

And it just stopped. Stopped wailing and instead was snapping it’s tiny jaws at Bucky’s chin-length hair.

He carried the puppy outside and around the grounds as he had his cigarette. Even though it was late at night, one of the owners of the farm was lounging outside the main house on an impressive porch swing that had been Bucky’s first barter for goods. Logan wasn’t the kind of guy you expected to run an organic, cattle farm. Not when he was constantly riding his motorcycle around the property and smoking cigars. But he was good people, and he and Bucky got along.

“What do you have there kid?” He asked Bucky.

And then Bucky felt guilty all of a sudden about taking the puppy away from its mother in the middle of the night. And for even wandering around what was Logan’s property.

But when Bucky didn’t answer, Logan just gave him a knowing look and gestured with his cigar at the dog. “They’re Basenjis. Herding dogs. Stubborn, hard to train, loyal, and smarter than most of the people you meet on a daily basis. And they only really ever form a bond with one person in their life. They don’t care much for me, but they all love Aurora. That one seems to like you though.”

“She wouldn’t shut up.” Bucky said as a defense. In his arms, the puppy had curled into a ball and was falling asleep.

“Yeah, they’re bark-less. But that don’t mean they don’t make noise.” Logan answered with a shrug.

Bucky nodded and then told Logan he was going back to bed because of their early morning the next day.

They finished pulling down the old barn and Bucky loaded the U-Haul with as much wood and whatever tack was going to be thrown out. He was about to leave when Aurora approached the truck with a basket over the crook of her arm.

“What’s this? A picnic lunch?” Bucky asked. She shook her head and handed it over. Lighter than he expected, Bucky opened the lid of the basket and found the puppy inside, asleep in a tiny nest of a horse blanket.

“She likes you, you like her.” Aurora told him, “You’d make a good team.”

He offered to pay her, but she would have none of it. Bucky though about the new house he had back in the city, empty and echoy. And the ramshackle backyard where the weeds were as high as his calves. It wasn’t at all puppy proof. But somehow it felt right.

And so he took the puppy home with him and named it after her home. Bellatrix Farms. Trixie for short.

Bucky works for hours as quickly as he can, finishes the cradle and another project. He locks up the place and calls the clients, letting them know that he’ll have the pieces delivered by the weekend. The harried, soon to be father sounds like he’s going to weep with joy.

He takes the train home and then stops at the bodega on the corner for Corona and a frozen pizza for dinner. Because he’s nothing if not a class act. But he feels so guilty about leaving Trixie that he just wants to sit outside with her all night so she can get her Ya-Yas out in the back yard.

Only there’s no excited yodel from the other side of the door when Bucky puts his key in the lock and opens it. The house is exactly like he left it. TV in the living room on, but quiet without the inquisitive clacking of Trixie’s nails on the hardwood floor.

Bucky’s heart starts beating wildly in his chest as his brain helpfully supplies a series of horrifying situations that may have happened. He searches the house from top to bottom, but she’s nowhere to be found. He calls out for her, his voice doing that awful thing where it breaks midway through. At the point when he stumbles into the backyard, Bucky feels like his lungs have stopped working.

Fucking hell.

Trixie’s in the backyard, happy as a clam in a round kiddy pool that Bucky’s been keeping leaned up against the house all summer.

And even stranger than the fact that his dog is outside when he left her in the house, if the fact that his fucking neighbor is laying on his stomach on a blanket in the grass, wearing sunglasses, cut off jean shorts and a giant white tank top that’s slipping off one shoulder as he turns to survey Bucky lazily. Cinnamon’s stretched out next to him, her body a seemingly impossibly long arched line.

“Before you start freaking the fuck out here,” Steve tells him, rolling over and then sitting up. He’s got zinc on his nose like he belongs in one of those teen beach movies from the 1960s. “Your spare key is hidden in absolutely the most obvious place in the world.”

“Taped to the inside of the gutter?” Bucky responds, his hands balling into fists at his sides.

“Yup.” Steve replies, the ‘p’ at the end of the word popping. “First place I looked.”

Bucky takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself before he flies off the rails. “You broke in to my house.” He begins, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. It never goes well when Bucky loses his temper.

“Technically I didn’t go in to your house, I just opened you back door and let your dog out.” Steve answers. Bucky looks pointedly at the three empty beers sitting next to Steve on the blanket. “Okay, I went into your kitchen and took a few beers as payment. You caught me there.”

Bucky looks over at Trixie, lying in the half filled kiddie pool all calm and happy.

“But you didn’t put her back in the house.” Bucky says.

Steve frowns, pulling off his glasses and laying them to the side. “Look, if you had to hear the sadness pouring from your house on a daily basis after you leave, you wouldn’t put her back in there to begin with. Your girl’s heartbroken whenever you leave. I couldn’t take it anymore.” He’s sitting there with his shoes kicked off and a bottle of sunblock beside him. And he broke in to Bucky’s house. And yet Bucky is the one who is the bad guy.

“I took her to a place,” Bucky says, still breathing like he ran a marathon, but the anger inside him subsiding in favor of shame. “Didn’t go well. She hated it. Freaked out, was pretty much inconsolable.”

Steve nods, he looks over at Cinnamon. “I get that. I don’t like to be around lots of new people. And with the butt sniffing that must go on, it’s probably incredibly stressful.”

Bucky snorts and takes a seat on the back steps, running a hand through his hair. He broke his last hair tie; he needs another one to get it off of his neck. “She doesn’t really love other dogs. Tolerates them. But I think she thinks she’s a person. Does better with people.”

Steve nods. He turns around to grab a notebook that Bucky hadn’t really paid attention to before. Steve quickly jots something down and snaps it shut.

“I should leave you two to hang out.” He says, going to pack up his things. Bucky watches as he folds up his blanket, piles the books he brought with him and the sunscreen up into a bundle and hefts it into his arms. “Far be it from me to interrupt father-daughter time.”

Bucky bobs his head in answer. “You know, since I’m pretty sure you work from home—I could pay you to let her out for me. If you want.”

Steve cocks his head to the side, considering this. “You don’t need to pay me James, not having to listen to your dog howl would be payment enough.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. Sarcastic little shit. He’s not going to make this easy on Bucky. “Steve, I would really appreciate it if you would take time out of your lounging and reading to let my dog out of the house every once in a while. I mean, you know where the key is and everything.”

Steve appears to consider this. “Yeah, okay.”

He looks behind him and nods in Cinnamon’s direction. And like a witch calling his familiar, the cat meows at Trixie in farewell and follows Steve to the gate.

“Also, I’m pretty sure that letting your dog out doesn’t make us even. I know your dog and my cat have been having sleepovers for like two weeks now. Just tell me you’re not doing creepy weird things in there, James.” Steve calls back from the gate.

Bucky’s cheeks flush. He doesn’t even bother asking how Steve knows. Steve is up at all hours of the night. He probably can see that Cinnamon jumps over to Bucky’s bedroom window and then climbs inside.

“It’s Bucky.” He tells Steve. One of Steve’s light eyebrows goes up as he hefts the blankets a little closer to his body. “And next time, bring your own beer. I’m not having you drink all my booze before I get back.”

A little half smirk skates up the side of Steve’s face. He nods, getting the latch of the gate open with an elbow before letting himself and the cat out.

Once he’s gone Bucky goes back to the kiddy pool. “What? I get no greeting. I’m just your father. I’m just the one who keeps you fed and clothed.” He tells her. Trixie’s tail wags so hard in the kiddy pool that she’s splashing Bucky’s ankles. “You only like him because he’s new.” Bucky tells her, kneeling down to run a hand over the wet fur of her head.

She yodels and springs out of the pool in a move she’s probably learned from the stupid cat. 25 lbs. of dog hits Bucky in the chest and sends him sprawling. Trixie proceeds to lick his face for a good ten minutes.


	4. Chapter 4

They fall into a rhythm, Bucky takes Trixie on her run, stops at the bodega for coffee and heads home. Sometimes Steve is kicking the Lamborghini guy out of his apartment, sometimes another familiar guy is sitting on the steps to Steve’s apartment on his phone. Bucky tries his best to straddle the line between detached observer and neighbor. Mostly he nods to whoever it is and goes on his way.

He’s beginning to think that Steve might be a sex worker, what with his apparent lack of career and the stream of strangers in and out of his apartment all night.

Nevertheless, he still buy extra beers for Steve to drink when he lets Trixie out in the afternoon.

That’s part of the routine too. Bucky will call up to Steve’s window when he’s leaving for the studio—he’s beginning to wonder what he’ll do when it gets too cold for Steve to leave his window open. They can’t continue their conversations by way of Romeo and Juliet—nope. Stop that train of though in its tracks, Barnes. Steve will drop by and let Trixie out. Sometimes when Bucky gets home, Steve brings her down from his place and drops her off.

It’s only a little annoying that Steve has seen the inside of Bucky’s place along with his cat. And yet Bucky is the only one who hasn’t seen Steve’s place. It’s probably full of hipstery paint-by-numbers paintings of circus animals and mismatched diner coffeemugs from every state.

Bucky and Trixie will hang out in the backyard for a while, he’s gotten into grilling on the small Coleman he bought himself on impulse. After that, well it’s pretty much TV and then sleep. He leaves the window open and what are they going to do about that? Because Bucky is the kind of person who loathes sleeping in the cold. He’s got about ten blankets on his bed in the winter.

They’re three weeks into the arrangement of Steve and Bucky long-distance co-parenting Trixie when Bucky bolts awake in the middle of the night, not to the cold nose that Cinna so loves to jab him with, but to a crash and a muffled yell from next door.

It’s a combination of growing up in the city and living in a war zone, Bucky is awake and out the door in about thirty seconds. He tells Trixie, “Be good,” on his way out the door, keys in hand.

He might not know Steve’s middle name, but he’s positive that it was Steve’s yell that woke him up. The floorboards of Steve’s staircase are rough under Bucky’s feet as he climbs them two at a time.

Luckily, only about a minute passes between the time that Bucky begins pounding on Steve’s door to when the man answers it. Any more time and Bucky probably would have broken it down. Steve looks startles and more than a little like he’s cosplaying as a dalmation. His white t-shirt is splattered with big black blotches that go up his arms, a few across his cheek. And okay, Bucky officially knows that Steve’s a boxer briefs kind of guy.

“Who answers the door without pants on?” Bucky finds himself asking inexplicably.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, a blotch of ink transferring from his hand to the forelock of his hair, “Who nearly knocks a guy’s door off it’s hinges without a shirt on?” Steve counters.

...shit.

Bucky abruptly registers the feeling of cool summer air against his bare skin.

“There’s no chance either of us are going to live this down, is there?” Steve asks, grimacing.

Bucky shakes his head, absently rubbing at the place where scar tissue covers the wound that shattered his shoulder joint into roughly 1000 pieces. Steve doesn’t mention it, but he does kind of pointedly stare at Bucky’s chest.

This giving Bucky free reign to stare at Steve’s legs, he doesn’t really put an end to it.

Eventually Cinnamon meows loudly at the two men taking each other in, breaking the mood.

“I came to see if you’re okay.” Bucky blurts out.

“I’m fine.” Steve sighs, turning and heading into the apartment, “It’s fucking stupid. I should have know this would happen.” He says, still walking though the dark kitchen. Bucky takes this as invitation to enter the premises, his feet padding across the tile floor. The kitchen is small and tidy, a clock shaped like a cat on the wall signals that it’s nearly three in the morning.

Bucky follows Steve through the kitchen to a room with a bright lamp on in the corner. It was clearly supposed to be a living room, but there’s no TV, and Steve’s turned it into some kind of studio. It’s the room that Bucky can see into from his backyard, with a bathroom and what Bucky assumes is Steve’s bedroom off of that. Bucky has to duck to avoid slapping himself in the face with any of the hundred pieces of paper dangling from lines crisscrossing the room. Bucky hastily backs away, the paper coming into focus.

Huh.

It’s his backyard. 

Undeniably. And that’s his porch and the kiddie pool that Steve filled earlier in the summer. 

It’s an illustration done up in watercolors and sharply inked lines for the grass and the fence separating Steve’s yard from his own, and on top of the fence is Cinnamon, perched like the gargoyle she is.

“Steve.” Bucky says, having lost Steve in the maze of artwork. “Any reason why my backyard is immortalized in watercolor?”

There’s water running from the bathroom ten feet away. “Uh. About that.”

But Bucky is already moving on from one drawing to another, some of Cinnamon sleeping in a curled ball in a shaft of sunlight, others of Trixie running in stylized circles around he cat, some have Steve’s legs and shoes in them like he’s stepping in and out of frame at the last minute, and Bucky’s even in one. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, mostly in shadow on the back porch.

Jesus, how long has Steve been doing this?

“I’m still waiting on an answer, pal.” Bucky says.

Steve sighs, pushing aside one of the pieces of paper so he can throw a t-shirt in Bucky’s direction. When he shakes it out he sees there’s a giant MIT logo on it, and Bucky tries not to think about what guy left it at Steve’s place because it’s about ten sizes too big for him. “Cinna and Meg.” Steve says as though that explains anything.

“Eggs and bacon. I can speak nonsense too, Steve.” Bucky says, pulling the shirt over his head. Steve’s wiping his arms down with a towel, mostly spreading streaks of black ink down his arms.

Steve grabs Bucky by the wrist and forcibly drags him through the room, trusting that Bucky will duck lest he hit his head on the art hanging from the stings. They reach a bookshelf where about ten thin picture books are lined up with their foiled spines facing the room.

Steve grabs one, “Cinna and Meg Come Home.” He says, “This was the first. It started as a project for my illustration class, and then I posted a bunch of my work to my blog and it took off from there.” He hands the picture book to Bucky carefully.

Bucky pulls back the cover to reveal a title page with an illustration of two gray hairless cats, one much larger than the other curled together on a yellow armchair. Below the photo are the words “Art and Words by Steven Rogers.”

“My mom wanted me to use my full name.” Steve says, shrugging.

Bucky turns the page to reveal an image of a long line of cages going down a hallway and what are unmistakably Steve’s obnoxious red Converse shoes attached to long, thin legs walking down the hallway. Then there’s an image of the large cat’s face pressed against the wire of the cage, and the shadow of a smaller kitten behind her.

“You write children’s books.” Bucky says, snapping the book closed. A gold medal gleams on the front cover. “You write award-winning children’s books. This is amazing.”

A flush rises up on Steve’s cheeks. “Yeah. When I’m not convincing everyone in my life to pose nude for me.”

Bucky turns and looks for literally anything else to do except deal with that statement.

What he lands on is a collapsed desk before the window he’s used to looking into rather than out of. Not that he does that a lot. But Steve certainly does.

The actual word for the desk is ruin. It’s ruined. It is a ruin. Ink’s up one of the wall from the table top upending itself, a few half-finished pieces of work are absolutely covered in ink, and the chair is on the ground. He imagines that’s what caused the scream that woke Bucky, Steve panicked and threw himself out of his own chair.

The cause of the issue rests in the splintered, ruined leg of the desk, the immediate cause of the chaos, the fracture point.

“I can try to fix it for you.” Bucky says, already on his knees and sifting through the piles of paints, pens, and pencils that litter the floor as he looks for any more problems.

“That’s okay. I’ll just go to Ikea an get a new one tomorrow. That one lasted me like four years, paid for itself ten-fold.” Steve says, trying to scrub the ink from the wall with the same towel he was using on his arms. He’s not succeeding.

“Steve.” Bucky intones, “Leave it. Paint the wall.” he pauses. “I just cannot believe you buy your furniture at Ikea.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I like a bargain.” He looks down and then abruptly walks into the dark bedroom beyond the studio, appearing a moment later with loose sweat pants around his hips. Like that’s done anything to the memory of Steve in his little black boxer briefs standing in the doorway. “Seriously, Bucky. Don’t. I’ll clean it up. Leave it be.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Was any of this super important?” he asks, holding up an incredibly blotched image of the side of his house. Steve snatches the paper from his hand, balling it in his hands and throwing it into the garbage can in the space of a minute.

“Nope. The new book’s mostly done.” Steve tells him. “I’ll show you when I get it back from my editor.”

Bucky looks around the room, suddenly realizing how personal all of this must be for Steve, and here he is sorting through all his thing. How much would Bucky hate it if Steve was in his workshop? First of all, he would have to give his safety lecture to Steve, which he knows wouldn’t go over well. But the power sander is not a joke.

“I should probably go.” Bucky says, rising awkwardly.

“Trixie’s losing it.” Steve says, leaning out the window and looking over at where Trixie’s face is between the windowsill and the open window.

Bucky takes it in for a minute. Wow Steve can really see right into Bucky's room from this angle. He vaguely worries that he hasn’t been as strict about shutting the blinds after a shower, as he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long. Hopefully this tided you over. Thanks for reading!


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